Newsletter Archive: Spring 2002

The Genius of Caspar David Friedrich

German Romantic Art for Russian
Imperial Palaces at the Hermitage Rooms

20
April to 18 August

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) On a Sailing Ship, 1818-1819. Detail

The State Hermitage Museums holdings
of 19th century German art are unequalled outside Germany, mainly as a
result of the the enthusiasm of Tsar Nicholas 1 and his German-born wife
Alexandra Fyodorovna, who was the sister of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV
of Prussia. Nicholas and Alexandra purchased and commissioned works by
contemporary German artists.
The work of Caspar David Friedrich is represented in British public collections
by a single oil painting, Winter Landscape, 1811, in the National
Gallery and a handful of works on paper. This exhibition will therefore
not only present to a British audience a unique showing of masterpieces
but also explore the taste of Tsar Nicholas I and his immediate family
for German Art.